Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The following list shows some of the most common proofreading marks and symbols used
by proofreaders and editors – and explains their meaning (note that some proofreaders will use
different symbols than those shown here; if you see a symbol on a document and you’re not sure
what it means, ask your proofreader).
Insert something; the text to be inserted will likely be provided in the margin
Delete
Close up space
Add space
Transpose
Spell out
Make uppercase
Make lowercase
Let stand
Insert a comma
Insert period
Insert semicolon
Insert colon
Insert hyphen
Insert en dash
Insert em dash
Insert apostrophe
Insert parentheses
Insert brackets
Set as bold
Set as italics
Wrong font
Move left
Move right
Move up
Move down
Center
Begin paragraph
2. Read everything in the copy straight through from the beginning to end.